I had to get to the point where I finally would write about what’s going on in my job. Some people from my university have suggested to post some info about what it is like to work at a consulting firm so that future graduate students could somehow know where they were getting in.

The job of an associate consultant (or an analyst if you wish) is also known as paper pusher, or number cruncher. This explicit way to call it refers to the tedious work that basically consists on you spending all day gathering all the information from reliable sources (the hardest to find the more reliable they are…) to prove that 2+2=4. In that sense, the job is kind of boring. But you will learn many excel functions, powerpoint keyboard shortcuts and, most importantly, how to evaluate workload.

Workload is not a very precise term for a not very precise activity. Workload is the amount of work that is assigned to you. Workload can be managed in two ways. You can control the flow at the beginning (by saying to your manager “not anymore please!”) or at the end (leaving the office at 3 in the morning). And workload is as hot as fire, and therefore, you can get burned. Always remember that you can say no. If you don’t learn how to say no, you’re dead.

One might think: “who could possibly accept a job offer like this one?”. Well, there must be a reason, or quite a few. And salary is not one of them. Actually, if you divide your salary by the real number of hours that you spend in the office you won’t get a higher hourly rate than a Mcdonalds employee. Is it ego? I’m not confident about that neither, but could be. I really think it is some kind of masoquism.